Wisecrack & Advertising

Understanding Our Advertising Policy

If you’ve tuned into enough of our videos or podcasts, you’ve probably heard some advertising along with our content. We’d like to shed some light on our advertising policy in hopes that it will help our fans better understand how we choose our sponsors and how sponsorships and advertising interact with our content. Most of this policy has been unwritten since we started.

First, here are the two main forms of advertising you would see in Wisecrack content.

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Typically, our advertising fits into two categories:

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1. Host reads.This is “traditional” advertising content, where the sponsored product doesn’t have much or anything to do with the subject of the episode. This type of ad may appear in the beginning of the episode, embedded somewhere within the content, at the end, or in some combination of the three. Sometimes sponsors just pick a general topic they want their ad on, like “science” or “anime” or “horror movies.”

2. Branded content.Branded content is more deeply integrated into the subject matter of the episode; for example, a podcast episode sponsored by an upcoming film in which we discuss a related movie and talk about how it might relate to the sponsored work.
Sponsors will usually request something much more specific. They could be a plumbing company who wants us to do a “Philosophy of Plungers.” We’d turn that one down. Or they could be a network with a new show coming out, who wants us to cover a similar show, or somehow discuss their show. If we think the show looks good, and is smart, we’ll cover it.

As a fan, you should know:

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We will always disclose our sponsors up front.

If you hear a brand mentioned with no disclosure, it just means whoever wrote that script just likes that thing, or we think mentioning the brand adds something substantive to the video.

Brands will never dictate what gets said in the content itself, even for branded content. If they ask us to cover a movie, or topic, we will only do so if we feel like we could make a smart and honest video about that topic. For every piece of branded content you’ve seen, we’ve turned away at least a dozen who want us to cover something we find boring, or vapid, or just wrong.

We’re always trying to be better. People have been upset about the way some of our ads have been integrated previously, and we hear you all. Using music, graphics, and other cues, we want you to know what part of the video is the ad itself.